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Vox Media
| founders = | hq_location_city = Washington, D.C. | hq_location_country = U.S. | key_people = }} | brands = | website = }} Vox Media, Inc. is an American digital media company based in Washington, D.C. and New York City. The company was founded in July 2005 as SportsBlogs Inc. by Jerome Armstrong, Tyler Bleszinski, and Markos Moulitsas, and was rebranded as Vox Media in 2011. The company operates additional offices in San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, Austin, and London. In June 2010, the network featured over 300 sites with over 400 paid writers. In September 2018, Comscore ranked Vox Media as the 30th-most popular media company among users from the United States. Vox Media owns six editorial brands—''The Verge, ''Vox, SB Nation, Eater, Polygon, and Curbed—as well as, formerly, Racked and Recode. Vox Media's brands are built on Concert, a publisher-led market place for advertising, and Chorus, its proprietary content management system. The company's lines of business include the publishing platform Chorus, Concert, Vox Creative, Vox Entertainment, and the Vox Media Podcast Network. History Founding and expansion in sports media Vox Media was founded in 2005 as SportsBlogs Inc., the parent company of the sports blog network SB Nation, by political strategist Jerome Armstrong, freelance writer Tyler Bleszinski, and Markos Moulitsas (creator of Daily Kos). The site was a spin-off and expansion of Tyler Bleszinski's Oakland Athletics blog Athletics Nation, which sought to provide coverage of the team from a fan's perspective. The popularity of the site led to other sports blogs being incorporated. In 2008, SB Nation hired former AOL executive Jim Bankoff as CEO to assist in its growth. He showed interest in SB Nation goal of building a network of niche-oriented sports websites. As of February 2009, the SB Nation network contained 185 blogs, and in November 2010, ComScore estimated that the site had attracted 5.8 million unique visitors. The 208 percent increase in unique visitors over November 2009 made SB Nation the fastest-growing sports website the company tracked at the time. Continued growth and expansion into other content areas In 2011, Bankoff hired a number of former writers from AOL's technology blog Engadget, including former editor-in-chief Joshua Topolsky, to build a new technology-oriented website. They had originally left AOL following a series of conflicts between Topolsky and Michael Arrington, author of TechCrunch (which AOL had recently acquired), and the leak of an internal training document that outlined a content strategy for AOL's blogs that prioritized profitability. Bankoff felt that a technology-oriented website would complement SB Nation due to their overlapping demographics. In November, the renamed Vox Media officially launched The Verge, with Topolsky as editor-in-chief. In 2012, Vox Media launched a video gaming website, Polygon, led by former Joystiq editor Christopher Grant. In November 2013, Vox Media acquired Curbed Network, which consisted of the real-estate blog network Curbed, the food blog Eater, and the fashion blog Racked. In April 2014, the company launched a news website, Vox. Led by former Washington Post columnist Ezra Klein, Melissa Bell and Matthew Yglesias, Vox was positioned as a general interest news service with a focus on providing additional context to recurring subjects within its articles. In May 2015, Vox Media acquired Recode, a technology industry news website that was founded by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher, the former editors of The Wall Street Journal s All Things Digital. On May 30, 2017, Vox Media announced that it had entered into an agreement to provide technology and advertising sales for Bill Simmons' sports website The Ringer, as part of a revenue sharing agreement. On April 15, 2019, Vox Media acquired magazine Epic, which would become part of a new division called Vox Media Studios, which had also absorbed Vox Entertainment and the Vox Media Podcast Network. On September 24, 2019, Vox Media agreed to acquire the parent company of ''New York'' magazine. Employment and labor In January 2018, Vox Media agreed to recognize a labor union, the Vox Media Union, being formed by its editorial staff with the Writers Guild of America, East. Under the Vox Media Union, more than 300 employees staged a walkout on June 6, 2019, over failed labour agreements between the union and Vox Media, leading to most Vox Media websites without operation. On February 21, 2018, it was reported that Vox Media would be laying off around 50 employees, particularly surrounding video production. CEO Jim Bankoff stated previously that the company planned to exit native video for Facebook due to "unreliable monetization and promotion". The memo announcing the layoffs argued that despite its success, native video "won't be viable audience or revenue growth drivers for us relative to other investments we are making", and that the company wanted to focus more on podcasting and Vox Entertainment. The layoffs represented around 5% of Vox's workforce. Funding In December 2014, Vox Media raised a round led by the growth equity firm General Atlantic, estimating the media company's value at around . Participants in Vox Media's previous rounds include Accel Partners, Comcast Ventures, and Khosla Ventures. Other funders are Allen & Company, Providence Equity Partners, and various angel investors, including Ted Leonsis, Dan Rosensweig, Jeff Weiner, and Brent Jones. According to sources, the Series C in May 2012, valued Vox Media at $140 million. A Series D valued the company north of , raising an additional . In August 2015, NBCUniversal made a equity investment in Vox Media, valuing the company at more than . Comcast, which owns NBC, additionally already owned 14% of Vox through other subsidiaries. Properties Vox Media is made up of six media brands: The Verge (technology, culture, and science), Vox (general interest news), SB Nation (sports), Polygon (gaming), Eater (food and nightlife), and Curbed (real estate and home). SB Nation SB Nation (originally known as Sports Blog Nation) is a sports blogging network, founded by Tyler Bleszinski and Markos Moulitsas in 2005. The blog from which the network formed was started by Bleszinski as Athletics Nation in 2003, and focused solely on the Oakland Athletics. It has since expanded to cover sports franchises on a national scale, including all Major League Baseball, National Basketball Association, National Football League, and National Hockey League teams, as well as college and soccer teams, totaling over 300 community sites. In 2011, the network expanded into technology content with The Verge, leading to the parent company Sports Blogs Inc. being rebranded as Vox Media. Vox Media's chief executive, Jim Bankoff, has served as SB Nation CEO since 2009. The network expanded into radio programming in mid-2016 with SB Nation Radio, in partnership with Gow Media. The Verge The Verge is a technology news site, which launched on November 1, 2011; it was originally staffed by former employees of Engadget, including former editor Joshua Topolsky and the new site's editor-in-chief Nilay Patel. While Topolsky and his team were developing the new site, a "placeholder" site called This Is My Next was created to allow them to continue writing articles and producing podcasts. Topolsky described the site as being an "evolved version of what we had been doing AOL." In February 2014, The Verge had 7.9 million unique visitors according to ComScore. Vox Vox was launched in April 2014; it is a news website that employs explanatory journalism. The site's editor-in-chief is Lauren Williams. Polygon The video game website Polygon launched in 2012 as Vox Media's third property, and publishes news, culture, reviews, and videos. The site's founding staff included the editors-in-chief of the gaming sites Joystiq, Kotaku (Brian Crecente), and The Escapist. Staff published on The Verge as "Vox Games" beginning in February 2012, and launched as Polygon in October. The network features long-form journalism that focuses on the people making and playing the games rather than the games alone, and uses a "direct content sponsorship" model of online advertising. Christopher Grant serves as the current editor. Curbed Curbed is a real-estate and home website that reaches beyond New York City to publish in 32 markets across the U.S. It was founded in 2004 as a side project by Lockhart Steele, managing editor of Gawker Media. Curbed became a Vox Media brand when the company acquired its parent company, Curbed Network, in November 2013 for in cash and stock. In addition to the national site, Curbed operates local sites for 14 U.S. cities. The editor-in-chief is Kelsey Keith. Eater Eater is a food and dining network of sites, offering reviews and news about the restaurant industry. The network was founded by Lockhart Steele and Ben Leventhal in 2005, and originally focused on dining and nightlife in New York City. Eater launched a national site in 2009, and covered nearly 20 cities by 2012. Vox Media acquired Eater, along with two others comprising the Curbed Network, in late 2013. In 2017, Eater had 25 local sites in the United States in Canada, and launched its first international site in London. The site has been recognized four times by the James Beard Foundation Awards. Eater is led by editor-in-chief Amanda Kludt. Former Racked Racked was a retail and shopping website which covered style. It was acquired by Vox Media when the company acquired Curbed Network in November 2013. In December 2014, the site had 11.2 million page views and 8 million unique visitors. In addition to the national site, Racked had local sites for Los Angeles, New York City, Miami, and San Francisco. The editor-in-chief was Britt Aboutaleb. Racked was folded into Vox in September 2018. Recode Vox Media acquired technology news website Recode in May 2015. Recode hosts the annual invite-only Code Conference, at which editors of the site interview prominent figures of the technology industry. Recode was integrated into Vox in May 2019 under the name Recode by Vox. Businesses Chorus Conceived in 2008, Chorus was built to be a "next-generation" publishing platform. Developed specifically for SB Nation, it facilitates content creation, and implemented commenting and forums, which allowed for company growth, later evolving to analyze viewership and distribute content via various multimedia platforms. In 2014, Ezra Klein and Melissa Bell left The Washington Post to join Vox Media, in part because of the publishing platform. Additionally, the founders of Curbed, Eater, and The Verge said Chorus was a key reason for partnering with Vox Media. In 2018, Vox Media began to license Chorus as a software as a service (SaaS) business to other publishers, including Funny or Die and The Ringer. The Chicago Sun-Times signed on as the first traditional newspaper to launch on the platform in October 2018. Concert In April 2016, Vox Media and NBCUniversal launched Concert as a "premium, brand-friendly ad network" to reach more than 150 million people across their digital properties. New York Media, PopSugar, Quartz and Rolling Stone joined the marketplace in May 2018. In May 2018, Comscore estimated the network reaches almost 90 percent of all internet users. With the new partners, Concert launched C-Suite to reach executives among brands such as CNBC, Recode, The Verge, and Vox. Vox Creative Vox Creative is Vox Media's branded entertainment business. In October 2017, Vox Creative expanded to launch The Explainer Studio to bring the explainer format to brand partners. In 2016, Vox Creative's ad for "Applebee's Taste Test" won the Digiday Video Award for Best Video Ad. Vox Entertainment In March 2015, Vox Media formed a new division known as Vox Entertainment. The division was created to expand the company's presence in developing online video programming. Vox Entertainment announced new shows in 2018, including American Style on CNN, Explained on Netflix, No Passport Required (hosted by chef Marcus Samuelsson) on PBS, and another currently-unnamed "explainer" series on YouTube. Vox Entertainment is helmed by Vox Media president Marty Moe. In 2016, vice president of Vox Entertainment, Chad Mumm, was named to the ''Forbes'' 30 Under 30 and Variety "30 Execs to Watch" list. Vox Media Podcast Network The Vox Media Podcast Network is Vox Media's non-fiction audio programming business and has a broad portfolio of audio programming across business, technology, news and policy, sports, and dining. Shows include: Recode "Recode Decode", hosted by Kara Swisher, and "Recode Media with Peter Kafka"; The Verge "The Vergecast"; and Vox "The Weeds", "The Ezra Klein Show", and "Today, Explained". Reception In 2016, business magazine Inc. nominated Vox Media for "Company of the Year", citing that the company generated approximately in revenue in 2015, and was attracting 170 million unique users and 800 million content views monthly by 2016. Vox Media was named one of the world's "most innovative" media companies in 2017 by Fast Company for "doubling down on quality content while expanding". Vox Media was also named one of the "50 Great Places to Work" in Washington, D.C., by magazine Washingtonian. The company gained a rating of 95 out of 100 on the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index, which rates businesses on their treatment of LGBT personnel. References External links * Category:Vox Media Category:American companies established in 2005 Category:Internet properties established in 2005 Category:Media companies established in 2005 Category:Media companies of the United States Category:Online content distribution Category:Privately held companies based in Washington, D.C.